So the Years Went By
by uhpockuhlipz
Summary: Brittany chooses Artie and Santana has to move on. Their next meeting is not a happy ending. Not for anyone. Brittana super angst. prompted.


**THIS IS THE ANGSTIEST THING I HAVE EVER WRITTEN AND WILL EVER WRITE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. You have been freaking warned. My creys are eternal. **

The scene ends and Santana's crying quietly, trying to discreetly wipe her tears on her sleeve. It's no use, though. Brittany sees everything when it comes to her and her sleeve is quickly replaced by warm, steady fingers. "Jessie will be happy again, don't worry," she coos, and Santana smiles at her sweet face even though she feels like a complete jackass crying over a cartoon like this. Like, seriously? It's a freakin' Disney movie. If anyone sees her this choked up over fucking Toy Story 2, she will lose serious badass points. But it's only Brittany and so she sniffles, burrowing into her side.

It's weird, because even when Jessie goes home with the other toys and the movie ends, Santana is still wondering, _what happens when Andy stops loving all of them, too? _Some people wouldn't trust such a question to Brittany, but some people aren't Santana because she knows Brittany can handle the heavy meaning even if other people don't. So she asks and Brittany whispers, "Even when Andy is all grown up, even when he has to give them up, he'll always remember his toys. He'll never stop loving them." And Santana cries again even though she doesn't know why. Cries until she falls asleep in Brittany's arms, the blonde whispering soothing words of love and forever.

_When somebody loved me__  
><em>_Everything was beautiful__  
><em>_Every hour we spent together lives within my heart_

"Santana… I'm sorry." And she is. The Latina can see it in those blue eyes she loves so much, can see the apology in the glitter of her tears. It only angers Santana further. How _dare _she? How dare she feel sorry for Santana when she is the one causing all the fucking pain? She has the fucking power to end it, to make her happy again, to replace both of their smiles. And yet there she stands, shaking her head sadly while Santana clutches pleadingly at her fingers.

"What the fuck do you mean, you're sorry?" she snaps, but the words come off more broken than angry. She still grips those pale, slender fingers in a vice like grasp, as if she hopes the fierce contact will somehow communicate that she is right and Brittany is wrong and they can fix this. But the dancer is still shaking her head, gently prying her fingers from the white-knuckled hands holding them so tightly. "Brittany, please-"

"Santana." Her voice is still quiet but holds firm now. And Santana realizes that it is not pity, but sorrow, that fills those eyes. "I gave you so many chances. I offered you everything so many times. But you still won't give me anything back and I can't…" She looks away, the broken contact ripping a sob from the shaking Latina. "I can't keep waiting, San. It isn't fair. It's so super unfair to both of us to keep dragging it out this way. And Artie… he's good to me."

"Are you in love with him?" Santana whispers, and she's shaking from head to toe, hands in fists at her side because she has nothing to hold onto anymore. Tears roll down her cheeks, snag on the corner of her trembling lips, on the tip of her nose, on the dip of her chin. They fall in steady streams, distorting features she normally prided herself on but couldn't find the energy to care about now. She knows Brittany is right. If she gives her another chance, she'll do with it what she did with the others- waste it. But that doesn't mean she wants this to happen. She just wants Brittany. It's hard, but she wants her, and now Brittany is telling her she doesn't want her back anymore.

"No." It's simple, but the way she says it leaves no room for hope. "But there are things I love about him. Santana, we both… we both need to move on. It's time." She leans forward, and because the brunette is not expecting it, she manages to fit their lips together. It tastes like tears and broken promises and shattered dreams and just _so much _like the familiar Brittany and Santana taste that she cries harder and wraps herself around the blonde. Brittany lets her and kisses her back with just as much passion. They both know it's their last kiss and try to make it last forever, but eventually they need to breathe and Brittany breaks away with her own choked sob. "Even though I'm giving you up," she whispers, "I'll always remember you. I'll always love you." And then she walks away, leaving Santana alone.

_And when she was sad,__I was there to dry her tears__  
><em>_And when she was happy,__so was I__  
><em>_When she loved me_

She throws herself into schoolwork because she doesn't know what else to do. She quits Cheerios again and focuses on science, which she's always excelled in. If she sees them in the hallway, she pretends she doesn't. When she graduates in the top five percent of her class, no one comes to see her graduate. She gives a speech and everything, but she knows no one is in the audience for her. Mid-sentence she looks up to address her graduating class - they all look attentive, though that was probably because they were all still scared of her – and she sees a familiar tilt of a blonde head. She can't help but look, can't help but stare, as the crying blonde smiles at her. The speech falters until she looks away, clearing her throat to finish it off.

She doesn't look at Brittany again, nor does she seek her out after the ceremony. They are done with McKinley and Brittany is done with her. She made her choice. It is Santana who is dealing with the consequences of it.

Santana considers law school, but the idea of it is just so boring… so she becomes a cop instead. Totally not butch, right? Whatever, it isn't like it makes a difference. Outside of high school, she realizes at last that what they thought really didn't matter. She never sees any of them, except perhaps the rare Glee kid because they are (not surprisingly) the only real friends she made in high school. She aces all of her training and focuses completely on her career, fucking the odd woman at a bar now and again just to get out the pent up frustration. Maybe she doesn't have a heart to give anymore, but her sex drive has always been strong.

When she gets the invitation to the wedding, Santana stares at it before tearing it into pieces. It lands in her trash can, the pieces fluttering like feathers down on top of yesterday's old newspaper and this morning's coffee grinds.

_So the years went by__  
><em>_I stayed the same_

_But she began to drift away_

When she hands the taped up invitation to the usher, the tuxedoed man gives her a strange look. Still, he nods and steps aside to let her in. Who forges an invitation to a wedding, after all? She's deliberately late and sits down right before the ceremony begins at the very back of the church. It figures Brittany is getting married in a church- something they couldn't have done, Santana tacks on bitterly. Leave it to RoboWheels to give the dancer everything Santana never could and never would. He's already standing up front, clutching to the handles of his robotic legs that had cost Santana's father thousands that one Christmas. Puck is at his side in case he tires, but he is beaming and Santana doubts he'll be sitting any time soon. He's handsome, she thinks grudgingly, but not good enough.

No, never good enough.

Then the music starts and Brittany is entering through the double doors, radiant in white. It strikes the Latina how perfectly she's suited to this – the wedding thing – and the sight takes her breath away. When the couple says their vows, tears flow. Everyone is crying, smiling, happy for them.

Santana slips out of the church, gets in her car, and leaves.

_I was left alone_

She calls that night from the airport. Santana thinks about not picking up, but she does anyway. She's drunk and her greeting is slurred, but Brittany doesn't comment even though Santana knows she can tell.

'You came," she whispers, and there is the strangest mix of happy and sad in her bubbly voice.

"I came," Santana agrees, hiccupping as she sitting down on the couch. "You were so beaut'ful, Brittbritt. So damn beaut'ful. I hate you for being so beaut'ful."

Silence. Then, "I'm glad you were there. You're my best friend, San."

"Fuck you," she breathes, and she chokes on a sob. She has always been an easy crier when drunk. "Fuck you for asking me to see that." She expects to hear the dial tone, but Brittany hangs in there, listening without comment. It takes Santana a moment to stop sobbing, but eventually she calms down, her knuckles white around the phone she's still clutching to her ear. When she can speak again, she asks as she once did, "Do you love him?" A hesitation, and then,

"Yes."

So simple. It breaks Santana's heart and she nods her head even though Brittany can't see it, willing away the sobs. "Good," she manages, the word fragmented. "Good. B-be hap-appy, Brittbritt. I… I love you." And then she hangs up because she can't hold it in anymore. Almost immediately the sobs rip up from her very soul, tearing through her small body. She curls into herself, rocks herself in comfort. When the phone rings again, she throws it against the living room wall. It shatters.

Santana thinks it's a fitting metaphor.

_Still I waited for the day__  
><em>_When she'd say I will always love you_

She's a good cop. Everyone tells her that, everyone knows it. She has nothing else to focus on and so the job becomes her only love. Though young, she rises quickly through the ranks. She hears snippets here and there from the other glee club kids, especially Quinn, who once in a while slips news of Brittany into their biweekly phone conversations. So she knows when Brittany gets her big break and starts dancing professionally. She knows when they have their first baby and Brittany retires. She knows they are happy, and that is all she could have asked. It isn't her, and it never will be, but Brittany's happiness is the next best thing. It is a life that isn't Santana's and so she tries not to think too hard about it. Alone suits her just fine.

Another case, another cold-blooded murder for nothing more than a wallet. Santana hears the static-filled message on her radio and reports to dispatch, telling them she's on her way. There's a crowd already forming around the police barrier and Santana snaps at a few bystanders as she gets closer to the scene. "That's crime scene tape, assholes," she growls and they back up when she flashes her shiny new lieutenant's badge, a smirk curling plump lips. It fades when she sees the puddle of blonde hair. The closer she steps, the more the panic rises, replacing the cool professionalism she's worked so hard at for years. Bile pools in her throat and she can only hear the chant of _no, no, no, nonononono _from the distance.

She doesn't realize it's her whispering the words, then yelling them as she runs to the crumpled body on the ground. Blue eyes stare dazedly up, shocked that such an act of violence could be committed against their owners. Santana is sobbing, struggling not to gather her close, trying desperately to heed the shouts from other officers about contaminating the crime scene. All she can see is Brittany, her Brittany, looking so confused by the hole that had been ripped through the center of her chest. If Santana adjusts her own jacket, the wound isn't even visible. She's just asleep, she's just dazed, she's fine... Fine… Fine…

But she isn't.

_Lonely and forgotten,__  
><em>_I'd never thought she'd look my way__  
><em>_And she smiled at me and held me just like she used to do_

Santana goes to the funeral. She stands in the crowd, dry-eyed, watching as the man in the robe speaks words of love and praise for the life so needlessly cut short. A little girl, no older than seven, walks to the white casket and gently places a bright yellow sunflower on top of it. She is smiling, but there are tears on her cheeks. Santana sees her lips move, and though she's never met the girl, she can practically hear her whisper "bye, mommy."

The others leave in a slow trickle. Artie passes her and they share a look of mutual lost love, at last understanding one another. His daughter – Brittany's baby, the mini version of her mother – climbs into his lap then. "Let's go home, Santana," he says to the child, and again he shares a look with the Latina still standing by his wife's grave before they wheel away. She watches them go, watches them all go, until she's the only one left.

_Like she loved me__  
><em>_When she loved me_

Slowly she moves to the side of the casket, her fingers brushing the petals of the sunflower the child – Santana, she thinks – left behind. Brittany had been right, she realizes. Wasn't she always? It was impossible to forget, impossible to stop loving, what she had so cherished when she'd been young.

"When somebody loved me," she whispered, the song slipping in jagged fragments from her lips, "Everything was… beautiful…" Santana drops to her knees, her legs unable to support her weight as she cries for her lost love, her lost best friend. "Every hour we spent together lives within my heart…"

_When she loved me…_


End file.
